Hi Crafters,
It's that time of year again! I can't believe summer is quickly dwindling. I have been working at school the past few days on bulletin boards. This will be my 7th year teaching middle school. I've been doing a majority of the school's bulletin boards for the past 4 years.
I thought I would pass on a few tips and talk about what I keep in my bulletin board tool kit (my rolling cart). I prefer to use a rolling cart that has the power hookup so I can plug in the cricut and my laptop/gypsy/phone as needed.
1- Cricut machine
2- 12x12 paper (and sometimes my cricut sliding cutter)
3- Extra cartridges, if it's a quick cut I won't fool with my gypsy or cricut craftroom
4- 2 cricut mats- one for cutting while I take the letters off the other one
5- Pushpins in an easy access container- this one happens to have a magnet on the bottom which keeps the tin from flipping over. I like an open container for this because it makes it easy to grab a few pins. I typically put up bulletin boards by myself (Check out my video tutorial on how to do this alone) and I could NOT do it without pushpins. It allows me to position the paper on the board starting at one end and working my way down. I can easily adjust it if it's not straight or has slack in the middle. They are also great for positioning those tricky letters straight! I'm can move them around without having to remove staples.
6- Laptop (for music, spell checking, using My Cut Search to find an image, cricut craft room,)
7- Gyspy--I am a gypsy girl over a craftroom. It's easy to design things before hand.
8- Scissors- a GREAT pair. Seriously, don't mess around with dull ones
9- Fishing line- it's great for quickly measuring how long your boards are so you know how much paper to roll out for the background. Throw it away when you're done; it's cheap and it tangles!
10- Stapler- I have one that broke off from the base. This makes it VERY easy to staple things to the bulletin board. It's not so great to use in the classroom with students, but a happy accident in my case.
11- Tape- I tape the end of the fishing line to the board while I measure out what I need.
12- Extra staples- I typically grab a box and by the end of the year I have used all 5,000 of them!
13- Staple remover- I really like the kind that slides under the staple, not the jaws of life version. It helps prevent ripping if you're keeping the background paper intact.
14- Trash container- It gets messy!
I think that just about covers my messy tool kit solution! I'm thinking I may add on a 1/2 apron with pockets for next year to keep a few of those things a bit closer.
It's that time of year again! I can't believe summer is quickly dwindling. I have been working at school the past few days on bulletin boards. This will be my 7th year teaching middle school. I've been doing a majority of the school's bulletin boards for the past 4 years.
I thought I would pass on a few tips and talk about what I keep in my bulletin board tool kit (my rolling cart). I prefer to use a rolling cart that has the power hookup so I can plug in the cricut and my laptop/gypsy/phone as needed.
2- 12x12 paper (and sometimes my cricut sliding cutter)
3- Extra cartridges, if it's a quick cut I won't fool with my gypsy or cricut craftroom
4- 2 cricut mats- one for cutting while I take the letters off the other one
5- Pushpins in an easy access container- this one happens to have a magnet on the bottom which keeps the tin from flipping over. I like an open container for this because it makes it easy to grab a few pins. I typically put up bulletin boards by myself (Check out my video tutorial on how to do this alone) and I could NOT do it without pushpins. It allows me to position the paper on the board starting at one end and working my way down. I can easily adjust it if it's not straight or has slack in the middle. They are also great for positioning those tricky letters straight! I'm can move them around without having to remove staples.
7- Gyspy--I am a gypsy girl over a craftroom. It's easy to design things before hand.
8- Scissors- a GREAT pair. Seriously, don't mess around with dull ones
9- Fishing line- it's great for quickly measuring how long your boards are so you know how much paper to roll out for the background. Throw it away when you're done; it's cheap and it tangles!
10- Stapler- I have one that broke off from the base. This makes it VERY easy to staple things to the bulletin board. It's not so great to use in the classroom with students, but a happy accident in my case.
11- Tape- I tape the end of the fishing line to the board while I measure out what I need.
12- Extra staples- I typically grab a box and by the end of the year I have used all 5,000 of them!
13- Staple remover- I really like the kind that slides under the staple, not the jaws of life version. It helps prevent ripping if you're keeping the background paper intact.
14- Trash container- It gets messy!
I think that just about covers my messy tool kit solution! I'm thinking I may add on a 1/2 apron with pockets for next year to keep a few of those things a bit closer.
Here's one of the boards I finished up this week. It says Attitude is the mind's paintbrush, it can color any situation. The font is Opposites Attract, the pallet is from Seasame Street Friends and the paintbrush is from Locker Talk.
Thanks for stopping by,